Abstract
This article addresses issues central to the task of Internet governance and, especially, to the management of the Internet's core resources. Early conceptions of the Internet as a virtual space that required no regulation resisted initial governance activity. More recently, work by people like Lawrence Lessig has clarified the complex relationship between code and the regulation of cyberspace, revealing on one hand a problem of how public policy is framed inside the global Internet infrastructure and, on the other, a problem of how the technical architecture of the Internet is designed. Cutting across such problems is the complex relationship between ‘real places’ (bordered) and ‘virtual spaces’ (unbordered), which are irreducible yet inseparable in the information age. The article explores concrete steps taken during the past 15 years toward developing a workable approach to Internet governance and looks ahead to consider the prospects of the Working Group on Internet Governance (WGIG) established in 2004.